You may not have heard of NATS but for every holidaymaker flying out of UK air space they are vital as they are the provider of air traffic control services. And today they say that it will be the busiest day ever in the skies above the UK. They expect to handle a record breaking 8,800 flights in and out of the country just today. During the summer NATS expects to handle more than 770,000 flights, an increase by 40,000 from last year. That 5.2% > Read more

Tenerife, Jamaica, Dubai and Singapore are all seeing more British and Irish visitors. That is providing they aren’t trying to get there via Gatwick and using Southern to catch their planes. Yes the strikes at Southern look set to continue!

Christmas trees, (well it is that time of the year,) new transport facilities in Venice, more help for people with disabilities at airports and the end of the Thomson holiday name attract Adrian’s attention this week.

UPDATE: 13th July.
“The Scotsman” newspaper says that the MD of Edinburgh Airport, Gordon Dewar, has said that the £1 charge for drop off/pick-up may not be enough to change people’s habits. He expects that the number of cars using the drop-off area will fall from 1.6 million to 1 million. If it doesn’t will BAA raise the price? The petition launched by Gavin Brown MSP has so far collected only about 1,200 signatures. If you wish to support the petition you will find it at http://www.gopetition.co.uk/petitions/say-no-to-drop-off-charges-at-edinburgh-airport.html.

Like the proverbial London bus – you wait for ages and then two come along- two airports have announced identical prices for identical services. Belfast International and Edinburgh airports have both said that we’ll have to pay a pound to drop off or collect passengers at their airports.
What else is this but another case of the systematic mugging of the airline passenger?

There’s one thing you can guarantee in the wake of the attempted plane bombing above Detroit in December: we’re all going to spend a lot longer at airports. CD Traveller profiles the capital’s four main airports to see how they measure up

Both Ryanair and easyjet have complained about the landing fees being charged by certain airports. According to easyjet, Luton Airport’s fees have risen by over 25% over the last few years and that it is why it has cut the number of flights operating from there. The same applies to the cutbacks by Ryanair at Manchester, Dublin and Stansted airports.

We’re used to the idea of no-frills or budget airlines. These are airlines who provide a cheap price for a basic service, a service which involves little more than getting you from A to B. For anything else you pay but at least you have the right to decide what you pay for. Money earned in this way is called ancillary revenue. Last week a report from Collinson Latitude estimated that no-frills airlines were earning $12 in ancillary revenue for every passenger they carried. So > Read more